Off to see the wizard

Talk about playing the cancer card. There I was lined up with hundreds of people waiting to enter a hotel ballroom where a healer would gaze at us for 10 minutes, effecting various miraculous transformations on what ailed us. I got tired so I went to sit down while my pals Jan and Irene held our place.

Then Jan showed up at my side.

“People with special needs get in early!” she hissed.

I was a little slow to get it, but she was staring at me fixedly.

“Oh, you mean I have special needs,” I said. “I guess if I take off my hat, it’s obvious.”

To be fair, I was having a post-chemo day of feeling pretty darn crappy, and later turned out to have a stomach flu.

It’s my new super-power. With the hat on, I look like an ordinary middle-aged woman obsessed with staying warm. Whip it off, and suddenly I’m Sick Lady, an object of pity – and preferential treatment in this case.

So I did it. Jan and Irene hustled us to the front of the line and proclaimed to the gatekeeper: “Our friend has special needs.” And just like that we were entering.

Inside ushers directed us to the center of the very front row, where we’d be sure to catch an extra gaze. Around us were the other special needs folks, some with oxygen tanks, some with wheelchairs or canes.

Yup, another trip to Lourdes, New Age-style.

First came the pre-show warm up – meditative music from a guy on a guitar and a woman on a flute.

As the 300 or so other folks filed in, a pretty blonde woman wielding a microphone whispered “Sssshhhhhh” over and over, so there would be reverential quiet. She was wearing a kind of pink ruffled minidress, tight leggings and 6-inch stiletto heels with a complex arrangement of black straps affixing them to her feet. She also sported bookish glasses. The overall effect was Dominatrix Librarian.

She told us stories about the healer’s powers. “Sometimes people with cancer have visited the bathroom right afterwards and their tumor just miraculously left their body.”

I was confused. What about the bathroom would make a tumor do that?

“I don’t mean to get too graphic,” she apologized.

Oh, I get it now. The tumors were excreted in the toilet.

In all my extensive medical education on Wikipedia, I hadn’t learned about that possibility. Clearly, I need to study harder.

“Some of those people were doctors,” she said, just in case we were doubting Thomases.

She told us what it might be like to be in the presence of the healer. “Sometimes people see a golden light. Sometimes they get warm all over, or feel total bliss and acceptance.”

When the diminutive, long-haired man finally strode into the room and stood on a dais a few feet in front of me, I did feel a brief moment of exhilaration, but it might have been relief that we were getting the show on the road.

In fact, he did project tranquility. His glance traveled over the audience with calm dignity.

While I didn’t see a golden light or feel enveloped in bliss, I took the opportunity to take some deep breaths and practice feeling centered. Looking around me, I saw many people who seemed awe-struck.

After ten minutes, he climbed off the stand and exited stage right.

As we lined up to leave (no special-needs treatment on the way out), Jan whispered: “Do you want to go to the ladies room?”

“No, I’m okay,” I said.

Her eyes twinkled. “But don’t you want to go there to see if you, um, release your cancer?”

I couldn’t quite figure out what path it would have to take to travel from breast to elimination.

“No, no, I think I can skip it,” I said hastily. “Really I’m fine.”